Submitted by Anne Schanz on Thursday, 6th October, 2011 — News item
Providing Access to Knowledge in Africa’s Arid Lands
Those living in the remote arid lands of Eastern Africa must do without a lot. They typically have no plumbing or electricity. They go for long stretches without rainfall. And they often don’t have easy access to medical care.
But what thousands of them do have is access to information, technology, and the Internet. The Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) has created 12 Maarifa—or Knowledge—Centers in the most hard-to-reach regions of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania so that these people have the tools they need to improve their health, increase their incomes, and better their lives.
That means those living far from a doctor or hospital can use their Maarifa Center to research and learn ways to treat a deadly snake bite or prevent diseases like malaria. Farmers trying to grow crops under severely dry conditions can learn water harvesting techniques. And households without plumbing or electricity can learn about building safe latrines and using biogas stoves.
ALIN’s Maarifa Centers were created to provide answers and solutions to the everyday problems confronted by the people they serve.
Farmers Get the Information They Need to Grow and Thrive
Most people living in these areas are small farmers who depend on their crops and livestock to feed their families and earn their income. But these farmers face significant challenges, such as drought, disease, pests, and finding a stable market where they can sell their product for a decent price.
The staff of ALIN’s Maarifa Centers provide farmers access to the information they need to surmount those challenges. But the real key to their success is that they provide this knowledge in whatever format best suits their users.
Some farmers walk into a Maarifa Center and after a few lessons, are able to sit down at one of the computers and search the Internet for the information they need. Others prefer to read about best agricultural practices in Baobab magazine, a print publication created and distributed by ALIN. Still others are not able to read, and some speak neither English nor Swahili. For these farmers, ALIN also coordinates presentations, develops videos and podcasts, and organizes workshops.
Agnes Mughi is a farmer who was chosen to participate in a focus group to learn new farming practices such as water harvesting and then test them out. She said that her Maarifa Center in Kyuso exposed her to computers for the first time. “Before, I could not use computers. A computer was something amazing to us. But now I can operate it, I can use e-mail, I can communicate.” Agnes has had so much success using the new innovations she learned, she has hosted visitors to her own farm, written articles, and worked with ALIN to create a video called “People and Dry Land” about how farmers can cope with living in a dry, arid climate.
Lenana Ole Leseiyo, who can only speak in his local tribal language and cannot use a computer, was sent by the Nguruman Maarifa Center to Meru in central Kenya, where he was able to witness farmers doing amazing things with small plots of land. “They were having a fishpond, they were doing livestock keeping, they were even growing crops. So that really motivated me when I came back. I wanted now to share that knowledge with others.”
Information Keeps Flowing With the Help of Volunteers
Therein lies another key to ALIN’s success: Utilizing the eagerness, passion, and dedication of volunteers to spread knowledge from person to person, community to community. Because each Maarifa Center can only afford to hire one full-time staff person, volunteers are a crucial part of keeping the centers running.
Volunteers are used for every aspect of the center. Julius Matei is a farmer, a pastor, and a longtime volunteer at the Kyuso Maarifa Center. He repackages information into the local language, teaches computer skills, helps organize demonstrations, and assists with the general running of the center. “I have a desire of sharing with the people, and also especially giving other people knowledge which can uplift their living standards.”
Emmy Osano is a nurse in Ndhiwa who volunteered to go to a workshop near Nairobi to learn about the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, which was spreading through the community at an alarming rate. When Emmy returned, she began talking to people and writing articles. She wrote about wife inheritance, a practice in which widows are married off to men who are often infected. “They didn’t know that that is one way of spreading HIV, and there was so many deaths from HIV. …People have started understanding now.”
Creating a Knowledge-Driven Society
The ways in which ALIN’s Maarifa Centers have touched members of the communities they serve are many and diverse.
Entrepreneurs have created blogs and Web sites to promote and grow their fledgling businesses. Housewives have learned to use stoves powered by cow dung so their daughters don’t have to spend all their time searching for fire wood and can instead focus on their studies. Unemployed youth have found purpose by volunteering and learning valuable skills that will help them to secure jobs.
Visitors to these centers have seen first-hand what a dramatic effect knowledge can have on their lives. And that keeps them coming back for more.
Millicent Akinyi is a student and a teacher who lives five kilometers from the Ndhiwa Maarifa Center. The journey is long and difficult, especially during the rainy season, when the rocky dirt roads become impassable. Millicent often has to start at six in the morning to make it there by half past eight. But she doesn’t mind in the least. “I just trek…because I want knowledge.”
The vision of ALIN is to help communities become knowledge driven. Because with knowledge, the possibilities are endless.
